1st after Epiphany

Readings are:

Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The Gospel reading is Luke's version of the baptism of Christ: surely one of the most commonly recurring stories of the lectionary!
This week I want to give it a 'New Year' twist for our Creative church service 'A new start'. This is the start of Jesus' ministry, and while John the Baptist is full of talk about threshing and winnowing and unquenchable fire, which is all a bit scary, when God gets a word in edgeways he expresses pleasure in Jesus, the Son.

I'd like to encourage people to feel God's delight in them - offering a new start, cleansing and refreshment and setting !our feet on the road of purpose and love in 2010.

It will be cold in church! - so we will worship in the (heated) space of the church room, but I think I'll invite people to dash out into the church to experience the cleansing water of the font. I'll put boiling water in before the service, and hopefully it will just be pleasantly warm when we get there. I want it to feel good that we are bathed in God's love, not like it's a punishment!

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